The Exploits Of Sherlock Holmes (1999) - Plot & Excerpts
This collection of apocryphal Sherlockiana has a special status: the stories herein are the first "authorised" pastiches that came out after the demise of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The rarest of rare collection og pastiches & parodies, edited by Ellery Queen, had been ruthlessly suppressed by Adrian Conan Doyle. Perhaps to amend the situation, or more accurately, perhaps to encash upon the public demand for more Holmes stories, he had collaborated with one of the greatest writers of mystery: John Dickson Carr, justly famous for his locked-room mysteries, to come up with these stories. The strong points that shout in the favour of the stories are: Holmes is true to canon, Watson is authentic, the settings and the characters don't create any discord with those of the canon, and the plots are tight (if not somewhat gimmicky, which takes away some of the re-read value. The stories are:1) The Adventure of The Seven Clocks: Why does a nobleman keeps on smashing clocks?2) The Adventure of The Gold Hunter: Can Holmes catch a murderer on the basis of his observations of a watch?3) The Adventure of The Wax Gamblers: Was it a mistake on the part of the old watchmen, or have the two wax statues of gamblers really started playing cards?4) The Adventure of The Highgate Miracle: What happened to the gentleman who, after rushing back to his house to collect his umbrella, had vanished from the face of earth?5) The Adventure of The Black Baronet: There lies a dead man, and there is the suspect at hand who has some motive, but where is the knife that had killed the man?6) The Adventure of The Sealed Room: Doors closed, windows closed, no intruder apparent, two shots fired accounting for the only two persons present in the room; but why is Holmes sure that this is cold-blooded murder and not just suicide?7) The Adventure of The Foulkes Rath: The person who had qaurreled with the murdered person is found dazed near the body, holding the murder weapon, sleeves soaked in blood; but why is Holmes looking elsewhere for the murderer?8) The Adventure of The Abbas Ruby: Who stole the ruby, or more importantly, who had got rid of the Camelias first?9) The Adventure of The Dark Angels: When death sends its messenger, can Holmes save the doomed man?10) The Adventure of The Two Women: Holmes & Watson risk all their honour & respectability to destroy the web of blackmail spun by a mastermind, but do they succeed?11) The Adventure of The Deptford Horror: For years the members of the Wilson family are succumbing to heart conditions, then why does Holmes suspect diabolical shrewdness behind these deaths, and what can he do to save the girl who is now living in the shadow?12) The Adventure of The Red Widow: a murder has taken place, the suspect is also not unknown, but what has the suspect done to the head of the murdered man?The stories purloin (or should I say: draw inspiration) from some of the most well-known canonical tricks, or simply re-enginner them to suit the present needs. But many of the themes are distinctly darker and much more disturbing than anything Sir Arthur might have liked. Recommended.
This was probably the first anthology of Sherlock Holmes pastiches that I ever read back in the dim and murky past when dinosaurs walked the Earth in mortal terror of Doug McClure. Basil Rathbone was still my main source of Holmes with most of Conan Doyle senior's stories still not having a place on my bookshelves. So now that all those brilliant works by dear Arthur are all indelible features of my memory, perhaps it's time I revisited his son's attempts to recreate his father's style with the help of his dad's old desk and of collaborator John Dickson Carr. Only the first two are full on collaborations with perhaps one of them, The Seven Clocks, being the best story in the collection. It's got a suitably bizarre fellow in it who goes in for some full on random clock smashing but it's the spot on atmosphere that makes the tale. The other being the rather poor The Gold Hunter. Carr's The Wax Gamblers is like one of those old school friends you bump into every five years or so, turning up in various anthologies. It has a very humorous tone and features boxing, an injured Holmes and Watson getting the butt of the jokes but saving the day anyway. Good story. Unfortunately Carr steps over the line too much in the farcical Highgate Miracle. Carr has almost no involvement in the very forgettable Black Baronet but must surely have loaned Conan Doyle some expertise to craft The Sealed Room. Carr is regarded as one of the greatest to pen the sub-genre of the locked room and one of his stories was voted the all time best by his peers. Conan Doyle's father also penned a story of the same name. What results is also quite a good story and another that pops up from time to time.From here on in Conan Doyle junior is left to his own devices as illness took a toll on Carr. What follows are six very derivative stories, mostly dull, with many of the right elements but no finished shine. The pick of them is The Debtford Horror, deeply derivative of The Speckled Band, but quite atmospheric with a nice frisson of creepiness to accompany one of the most creative methods of bumping off unwanted family members ever seen. Though thanks to Conan Doyle senior for sewing the seed by first mentioning in Black Peter the arrest of Wilson the notorious canary-trainer. Although Wilson is not arrested in the story Conan Doyle junior lays the blame at Watson's feet calling it 'a typical Watson error.' Holmes quite uncharacteristically spouts proverbs throughout. Fun though.What always occurs to me after reading a Sherlock Holmes anthology, and the number is legion, is that no matter how closely the writers mimic Conan Doyle senior's style, or how many Holmsian elements are included, none of them come close to performing the alchemy that Arthur Conan Doyle did. In many ways the formula to the literary alchemy of the perfect Victorian Sherlock Holmes story is lost to time because no one has first hand experience of the Victorian era nor the acquaintance of the men the great detective was based upon.
What do You think about The Exploits Of Sherlock Holmes (1999)?
Defined most simply, a pastiche is a story written by one author using the characters created by another; for example if Mark Twain had written a story featuring Dickens' creation Ebenezer Scrooge. Here we have a terrific group of short mystery stories written by the son of Sherlock Holmes creator Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, as well as famous mystery writer and Sir A.C.D biographer John Dickson Carr. Each story is based on a fleeting reference to it found in the original sixty stories featuring Holmes & Watson by Sir A.C.D.. If you've read the first sixty, you will love these!
—Read1000books
This collection, 'Exploits of Sherlock Holmes,' was not written by 'Sir Arthur' as some have written but his son, Adrian, and a co-author originally with copyrights date 1952, 1953 and 1954. B&N had permission to reprint in 1992 and it appear with different cover art in other editions. It is not the best but not the worst of Holmes 'knock offs.' It is easier to take than the more recent, 'The House of Silk: A Sherlock Holmes Novel' by Anthony Horowitz which I personally found distasteful.
—Osama Tariq
The trouble I have with the stories in this book is that they're a little too derivative of the stories of the Sherlock Holmes canon. There's not much new here. For example, "The Abbas Ruby" reads like a less clever "Blue Carbuncle," with the ending borrowing from "The Naval Treaty." "The Dark Angels" is a less convincing "Dancing Men." "The Deptford Horror" is an even more outlandish version of "The Speckled Band," and no few of the stories lift lines wholesale from the original text.The stories lack imagination in other ways as well. Even given Holmes' inevitable refusal to explain his thought processes along the way, the mysteries are frequently far too obvious. The book is readable, but if you've already read Arthur Conan Doyle's stories, you've already read these stories done better... and if you haven't, there's not likely to be anything here that would hold much interest to begin with.
—Abby
